The thought-provoking editorial “Government should frame law against marital-rape” (June 4) reminded me a quote of Shakespeare in his sonnet that says,’ Let me not to the marriage of true minds admit impediments’. There is overwhelming evidence to prove that marital rape is the most common form of sexual violence in India. According to Section 375 of the Indian Penal Code, which defines “rape” and “consent”, “sexual intercourse or sexual acts by a man with his own wife, the wife not being under 15 years of age, is not rape”. One thing is clear that if marital sex becomes a law as marital rape every married man will be behind the bars sometime or other. When marriage is considered a sanctified union of man and woman as the husband and wife after the permissible legal age, both have the right to have carnal pleasures as and when either one needed. Even the phrase ‘marital rape’ as the article sees, seems on one –sided, as it raucously speaks only about the husband engages himself in sexual violence against his wife who does not give her consent for sexual union as the occasion demands. Why do we as a society fail to comprehend that the great family structure that we have inherited since centuries is based on the unconditional love between partners? Marriage materializes between two adults at proposal of one and consent of other. They are not just two wheels which came together to cover distance on rail of marriage. In the very act of marriage, sexual activity is ingrained. So it surmises such activity is expected and consented.
Vinod C. Dixit
(The views expressed by the author in the article are his/her own.)
